Policies & Grades

Rules are rules. Advice is friendlier! What follows provides a bit of both. Be sure you ask me about any questions regarding any bit of this!

Grades

We all hate getting or giving them, but this system has garnered few complaints and very little grade-lawyering by my students. These rules are few but strictly enforced.

Do your reading always and you'll stand a better chance at a good mark. Slack off and I've little time for any complaints about lower-than-expected grades.  That said, we can meet to discuss concerns and to provide you with additional resources to do your best work, including more help from Writing Consultants or work with reading, via The Academic Skills Center.

See the Grading Rubric for how I mark individual work. Your final grade will be calculated as follows: 

I'll provide numerical grades for each of these; the average of your numerical grades give you your final average am a letter grade in the class.

Policies

Late work: 

Miss your meeting with your Consultant? Don't. Your phones have calendars (thank NASA for that and other wonders of microelectronics) that provide helpful reminders. You won't get commentary back until you attend the meeting.

Attendance: If you are absent, other than for an away game, you will not be able to make up in-class work. This includes illnesses. You are permitted three skips without penalty. Additional skips reduce your final class grade by 5 points, per skip. If you are not present, you cannot participate in group work either.

Electronics: Laptop or tablet for class. If I see you use a phone, I'll shame you. Keep them stashed. I really dislike how phones wreck our ability to pay attention and honor the presence of others.

Plagiarism:  I have caught and prosecuted four cases . I do not like this, but the penalty is harsh: zero on the assignment and immediate referral to Honor Council. You must cite all sources, and that means paraphrases of others' ideas as well as direct quotations. I will run all final drafts by a plagiarism checker. 

Note that it's not actionable plagiarism until you turn it in for a grade. If you are unsure if you've cited something unethically in a draft, check with me or your Consultant! We can help out. In each case I prosecuted, however, it was deliberate theft and lying, not carelessness. 

Use of Generative AI

As specified in my assignments, it is actually required for preliminary drafts. You will use such tools after college, but they do not replace your own original work. I find that AIs tend to produce C work because they fail to follow my entire assignment prompt. That said, they do write clear, if not very original, prose. For some writers, AI provides good models for how to structure an essay. As AI is a current research interest of mine, I'd be very interested in coaching you on how to make the most of this new tool, ethically and intellectually.

Accommodations


If you have a DAN already, get me a copy. I'd be more than happy to discuss how to tailor our time together to help you do your best work.

The University of Richmond’s office of Disability Services strives to ensure that students with disabilities and/or temporary conditions (i.e., concussions & injuries) are provided opportunity for full participation and equal access. Students who are experiencing a barrier to access due to a disability and/or temporary condition are encouraged to apply for accommodations by visiting: disability.richmond.edu.   Disability Services can be reached at disability@richmond.edu or 804-662-5001.

Once accommodations have been approved, students must 1) Submit their Disability Accommodation Notice (DAN) to each of their professors via the Disability Services Student Portal available at this link: sl.richmond.edu/be. and 2) Request a meeting with each professor to create an accommodation implementation plan. It is important to complete these steps as soon as possible because accommodations are never retroactive, and professors are permitted a reasonable amount of time for implementation.  Disability Services is available to assist, as needed.


Wernher von Braun in office at NASA
Soviet Union poster with cosmonaut